As we near the end of the calendar year, we are also nearing the end of the CFK Global Fellowship term for the 2025 cohort. Koketso Moeti, Chris Muriithi, Flávia Pellegrino, Gábor Scheiring, and Ivan Vejvoda have worked with Kettering’s Democracy around the Globe team—Paloma Dallas, Phillip Lurie, Ileana Marin, and Lisa Boone-Berry—to identify global anti-democratic trends and share initiatives that advance inclusive democracies.

The fellows’ courage, knowledge, and insights have enlightened the global work in many ways. They joined the global team as thought partners, bringing their scholarship and experience to today’s challenges, helping to make sense of how we can better learn from one another to push back against authoritarian tactics and imagine and build democracies that work for all of us.

In July, the fellows participated in the foundation’s first Kettering Global Conversation on Democracy: Solidarity across Borders, held in Washington, DC. Then in October, they were featured in “Bending the Arc of Democracy,” a symposium at the Athens Democracy Forum in Athens, Greece.

Each of these extraordinary people not only help us understand the global dimensions of the challenges we face but also exude hope. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with each of them.

To stay up to date on Democracy around the Globe collaborations and work—with the 2025 cohort and other members of the global network—subscribe to the INTERCONNECTED newsletter.